Metabolic Studio Public Salon:
Sam Easterson
Friday, April 2, 2010 @ Noon
Free Admission


The Museum of Animal Perspectives: Crowdsourcing Remotely Sensed Wildlife Imagery

This presentation will focus on the history and future of the Museum of Animal Perspectives (MAP). The Museum of Animal Perspectives collects and displays wildlife imagery that has been captured using remote sensing cameras. Through the presentation and interpretation of this imagery, the MAP endeavors to expand the public's capacity to empathize with animals and plants.

MAP founder Sam Easterson is a video naturalist. Included among the museums that have exhibited his work are the Whitney Museum of American Art (Biennial), the Walker Art Center, the New Museum and the International Center of Photography. In addition to working as a video naturalist, Sam Easterson has also held staff positions at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and at the Te Tapa Tongarewa National Museum of New Zealand. Most recently, Easterson worked as a Senior Producer at the Royal Ontario Museum, where he developed video content for the ROM’s new permanent Schad Gallery of Biodiversity.

Above: Burrowing Owl In Burrow

Courtesy: Sam Easterson/Museum of Animal Perspectives

Further Information

Science Friday
New York Times Lens
MAP Site

 



 

Metabolic Studio Public Salon:
Juliano Brotman
Friday, March 26, 2010 @ Noon
Free Admission


New Perfect Food is Here:

A way to finally do something about all that green talk!

Juliano Brotman began working alongside his father, a chef, at the age of eight. By ten years old he was cooking at full gourmet status, able to make any of his father’s one-of-a-kind creations. Although constantly cooking dishes of butter, oil and flesh, even at a young age he realized that flesh and fat were just the medium; it was all about the spices – “edible alchemy!”

After wilderness encounters in Palm Springs at the age of fifteen, Brotman became a strict vegan. Health food chains wouldn’t be around for years to come however and, as he explains: “there was nothing! I was a raw fooder and I didn’t even know it until I started having to explain.

At 18 Brotman moved to Chicago where he found some raw fooders eating simple whole foods. There was, he says “only wheatgrass, fruitarians and salad-tarians. Even before I was a vegetarian and vegan, I followed in my father’s footsteps of not simply cooking, but creating. I always made wonderful new creations that blew people’s minds! When I turned RAW these amazing recipes continued! Everyone is genius at something!” In the years that followed, the RAW chef saw a shift in health consciousness – organic food became more accessible, vegetarian food became a menu option – and he moved to San Francisco. Here he found the city’s raw food group and attended their first raw potluck party. “It was a large, eclectic crowd, all interested in what raw food could do for them. But the potluck spread consisted of wheatgrass, fruit, fruit salads, many salads, bowls of dried fruits, nuts and seeds, and rejuvelac.” In contrast when Juliano’s food showed up – pizzas in 3 flavors, burritos, ice cream and chocolate avocado pudding – everyone went crazy!

In August 1994, Juliano opened RAW in San Francisco – the world’s first raw cuisine restaurant – and in 1999 he published RAW, the UNcook BOOK, the world’s first raw food cookbook of ‘Decadent Foods’. “Juliano”, he says, “has changed the world!” "There have never been so many flavors going into my mouth at one sitting", says the Vegetarian Times.

Click for more information

Above: Raw dishes at Planet Raw, images courtesy of Juliano Brotman

 



 

Farmlab Public Salon
Van Zan Frater
Friday, March 19, 2010 @ Noon
Free Admission

Jesus is my Homeboy - the real story

You may think you know Jesus is my Homeboy. It's the image you've seen on tee-shirts, hats and badges. It's the iconic design worn by celebrities too numerous to mention. It’s that shirt you’re wearing right now – but there is much more to Jesus is my Homeboy than just an image.

Jesus is my Homeboy was not developed to make a fashion concern motivated by cashing in on a trend. It is not a calculated ploy to make money; it was born of inspiration gained from life experience. It is now time to tell the real story behind the success of Jesus is my Homeboy.

Van Zan, President and CEO of the Jesus is my Homeboy Foundation Inc., served in the Navy during the Viet Nam War Era. He is an actor, a singer, and has performed with his family music group, “The Fraters”, at, among other places, the Brentwood and Wadsworth Theaters. For 14 years he was a union AFGE local 1061 representative, serving as a Steward, Vice President and Executive Vice President consecutively until 2002. He established the Jesus is my Homeboy Foundation Inc. a non-profit human services organization in 2007 to provide assistance with burial expenses and grief counseling for innocent victims of gang violence. The founder, a victim of gang violence himself, Van Zan has a deep commitment to assisting families and individuals in this sudden and unexpected time of crisis. Other services to be provided in the future.

Further Information: www.jesusismyhomeboy.org or www.jesusismyhomeboy.com

 



 

Farmlab Public Salon
Robert Birchard
Friday, March 12, 2010 @ Noon
Free Admission


HOORAY FOR EDENDALE!

A celebration of the birth and early growth of the movie industry in Los Angeles. Award winning film editor, writer and film industry historian Robert S. Bichard presents over 100 images exploring the first movie studios in L.A--which were established a century ago. The Selig Polyscope, Keystone, Pathe, Mixville and Norbig studios constituted L.A.s first Studio Row in the 1910’s, and Hooray For Edendale! will take you inside the gates of these long-vanished pioneer film factories. This is a must attend event for anyone interested in the history of Los Angeles and the movies. This program was recently presented at the Hollywood Heritage Museum and the Los Angeles as Subject Archives Bazaar.

Image: Mack Sennett directing "Stolen Magic" (Keystone, 1915), Hans Koenekamp is the cameraman. Courtesy: Robert Birchard

Further information: http://www.rsbirchard.com